


look at the life you could be missing (look at the girl you should be kissing)

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Jealous!Beca Mitchell, Or Medium Burn, Pining, Slow Burn, they just don't know yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25985686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: Beca Mitchell’s not the jealous type, at all. She’s happy to let her friends make their own choices (except for when Fat Amy offers Jessica and Ashley her homemade margarita cocktail bombs; that one Halloween will live in infamy). And Chloe Beale is more than entitled to date any guy she deems worthy of her time.It’s just...why is Beca the only one who can ever see that none of these dudes are anywhere near good enough for her best friend?Fic title inspired by "Here's to the Meantime" by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.
Relationships: Chloe Beale/Beca Mitchell, Chloe Beale/OC
Comments: 25
Kudos: 91





	1. Wishing It Was You

**Author's Note:**

> This starts off in between PP1 and PP2, set just before the beginning of Beca’s junior year. It assumes Beca and Jesse broke up after roughly a year-plus of dating and have been pretty cool with each other ever since. All the girls, minus Legacy and Aubrey, are living together in the Bella house.

_I've got_

_Something on my mind, like_

_I'm out every night, but_

_All I do is miss you_

_And you're not even mine_

" _The third line is a lie,"_ Beca thinks to herself. Sadly, the other four stanzas of "Wishing It Was You" fit Beca's life to a fucking tee at the moment, a realization she tries and fails to escape as she ostensibly "works" on a new track. With her Spotify account running and no BandLab tabs open. And she's already on her second PBR of the day at 12:37 P.M. on a Saturday. Beca can't even use college football as an excuse for her day drinking, since Georgia's home opener against Florida State is still a couple of weeks away.

Even _Aubrey_ -neurotic, buttoned-up, straight-laced Aubrey-had encouraged her to enjoy some of the free time before the school year starts up and she and Chloe have to wrangle a new batch of recruits for the Bellas. And Beca's done that, definitely. She just hasn't gone out with the girls recently because her bank account needs to recover just as badly as her liver after the Bellas' latest Beer Olympics extravaganza. Or, at least, that's what she tells them. Truth be told, she's in decent shape financially, but it's a good excuse to not torture herself with watching Chloe get glammed up for clubbing, to see her pairing ruby red lipstick and smoky eye shadow with chic, summery, off-the-shoulder dresses that show off her biceps, her trim waistline, her toned legs, and her well-defined collarbones.

Not that Chloe's latest boy-toy, Jake, or Josh, or Jack (Beca doesn't particularly give a fuck about the specifics; she only remembers his name starts with a J because it reminds her vaguely of Jesse) ever really notices those features. Nope, all his attention just goes to Chloe's tits and ass. Which, ok, yeah, Beca can understand, at least a little. She _has_ seen Chloe naked, after all. But those are hardly her only physical assets worth admiring. And the semi-nameless guy she's "dating" should goddamn appreciate that she's much, much, _much_ more than an incredible lay.

Not that Beca knows from firsthand experience, but, well, sometimes you hear certain noises through paper-thin college-house walls, and Chloe's never been too shy about flaunting her sexual prowess, though she's hardly as bad as Stacie.

Beca's spoken to (AKA complained at) Jesse about it a couple of times, "it" being Chloe's less-than-stellar dating choices. She's careful to frame her grievances from the perspective of a concerned friend and largely takes aim at how this particular J guy never seems to put much effort into dates.

"Like, I don't think this dude owns a pair of khakis," she scoffs during one of their movie nights a couple of days later. She finds they're a lot more tolerable when she picks the movie and thus has at least some interest in Jesse's running background commentary. Tonight, it's the original _Tron._ "And his idea of a nice dinner is taking her to the Bonefish Grill. Chloe deserves better, right?"

"Sure, she does," Jesse shrugs as he munches on a handful of popcorn. Beca narrows her eyes. They might not be together anymore and haven't for a while now, but she's still well-attuned to Jesse's tells (she misses robbing him blind in games of Texas Hold 'Em with his buddies) and he's definitely humoring her, based on his tone of voice.

"Spill, Swanson," she demands.

"Spill what?" he asks innocently before taking a swig of Vanilla Coke from his can and offering it to her. She accepts. It should be weird, Beca thinks, to be this comfortable with your ex, but honestly, they were always more best friends who slept together than soulmates or two halves of the same heart or whatever the movies say long-term boyfriends and girlfriends should be.

Beca frowns. "You think I'm making too big a deal of this."

"All I'm saying is, you seem to have very high standards for the guys Chloe dates compared to, say, Stacie, or Flo, or Amy," he comments, earning a smack on the arm for his trouble. "Especially since it seems like this behavior is sort of a...Chloe thing," he adds on after a moment's hesitation.

Beca turns toward him. "A Chloe thing?"

"You know," Jesse shrugs again before pausing the movie. "She finds one or two guys every year, has fun flings with them for two or three months, and then they fizzle out. Like, maybe she's not really looking for anything serious at Barden?" he suggests. "The douchebag population here _is_ pretty high," he points out.

Beca grimaces in agreement; it seems like she's bumped into at least fourteen carbon copies of Bumper at various parties and she's only just going into her junior year. Still, she wants to contest Jesse's argument. After all, she _knows_ Chloe pictures herself getting married eventually. She's not desperate, but Beca has a hard time picturing her engaging in such short-term, sex-based relationships just out of habit or as part of a pattern (again, thanks to those thin bedroom walls, Beca's sometimes overheard Chloe, um, taking care of business by herself, and she seems to have absolutely no problems with it).

It's easier-less frightening, and less awkward, too-for Beca to just agree with Jesse, so she does, says, "Yeah, that could be it. She's planning to finally graduate next year, along with nearly all the rest of us, so maybe she'll find someone to settle down with then."

Verbalizing that thought-of all of them moving on, really, but especially Chloe-hurts more than Beca thinks it should, and Jesse maybe notices, because he mostly stays quiet during the rest of the movie and gives her a slightly longer than normal goodbye hug just before she leaves.

**

With a little bit over a week to go before school starts, Beca's going out for a run in the afternoon heat on a Saturday afternoon.

Not for, like, exercise purposes. She's hoping she can get out of helping to clean too much before the Bellas' end of summer blowout if she's not in the house when Chloe starts the chores.

She unlocks the front door quietly, eases it shut, and steps out of her sneakers.

" _If I can just get upstairs and make it to the bathroom before Chloe finds me, I should be able to dodge most maid duties,"_ Beca thinks hopefully.

As if on cue, the redhead dashes into the living room, armed with spray bottles of Windex and Pledge and some rags, and trills, "Hello, cleaning buddy!"

Well, shit.

"Hey, Chlo," Beca answers, wiping beads of sweat off her forehead with her shirt.

Chloe shoots her a megawatt smile. "Getting some cardio in as prep for Bella rehearsals?"

She'll take the lifeline of an excuse. "Yep. At least the girls we recruit won't have to go through Aubrey's special brand of workout hell. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna go shower."

"Ok. I'll expect you back down here in…" Chloe glances at her phone. "Twenty-ish minutes, by 3:30 or so, to help with party prep."

Beca glances back and sticks her tongue out as she trots up the stairs. "Sure, red, sure."

"Is that some insubordination I hear?" Chloe drawls. "I'll have you know, as the more senior co-captain, I _do_ outrank you, Becs."

Beca stops to listen. Mostly to revel in how Chloe puts on that half-demanding, half-flirting voice. She must inject caramel or honey into her words before they exit her (beautiful, full) mouth, Beca thinks, because they practically _drip_ off her (lush) lips.

"Yeah?" Beca quirks an eyebrow up at her, daring her to keep going.

"You already know I'm not afraid to interrupt your showers. So if you're taking too long, you might get a visit," Chloe purrs.

It's moments like these that break Beca's brain, that get her to scream internally, _"How the fuck haven't we ever kissed?"_

Because she can sense the air between them-in at least a six-foot gap, mind you-vibrating, humming, positively _crackling_ with electric tension, but then…

Chloe's phone dings and she trills, "Jake says hi. I think he's going to stop by for a bit tonight."

 _Jake._ That's it. Fuckin' Jake.

Beca groans at his unwelcome intrusion and calls down the stairs, "I'm just tired, walking sucks," in self-defense before her co-captain has a chance to huff about how she refuses to give any of her boyfriends a fair shake.

Beca can't help her reaction, because, truthfully, they _don't_ deserve that courtesy.

Just like they don't deserve to be with her Chloe.


	2. Pursuit of Happiness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if Beca’s ever taken a crack at songwriting in canon, but I had an easier time with that than trying to write her creating a mashup, so I decided to go with it.

Beca can hear Chloe's eclectic cleaning playlist from the shower as it jumps from Angus and Julia Stone to VersaEmerge to Arctic Monkeys to Childish Gambino. She pops out about after fifteen minutes, throws on a Bella t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts, and trots downstairs to help Chloe. As much as Beca dislikes pre-party cleaning, she hates post-party cleaning even more, and unlike, say, Fat Amy, Chloe will make sure they eliminate as much of that as possible.

As she starts Swiffering the kitchen and even cleans out the fridge (it's been a few weeks since anyone did that, and they're gonna need storage space for copious amounts of beer and mixers, anyway), she resolves to at least make an effort to be nice to Jake.

" _After all, Chloe's been seeing him for about a month,"_ she reasons, _"And they've been on three dates so far, I think, so he must be treating her pretty well."_

She manages to maintain that rationality when she rejoins Chloe to help her vacuum and dust the living room and asks, as casually as possible, "How are things with Jake going?"

"Oh, pretty good," Chloe hums as she cleans off the coffee table to spray it down with Pledge. "He's excited to meet you all later. Or, those of you he hasn't met yet—he's a Bio major, so he's taken a couple classes with Stacie, and I think he said Jessica and Ashley were in a gen ed course with him during your freshman year."

"So he'll get to meet all the crazies tonight, is what you're saying?" Beca jokes.

"I suppose so," Chloe laughs. "But he's already agreed to go see Guardians of the Galaxy with me next week, so I'm hoping he doesn't scare easily."

"I'll tell everyone to be on their best behavior," Beca assures her. "Or, like, middle of the road behavior. Especially Amy."

"Thanks, Becs," Chloe murmurs, turning down the volume on her playlist slightly before she comes over to where Beca's gathering up the water glasses that inevitably accumulate on window sills to softly lay a hand on her forearm and say, "I really appreciate it."

Beca manages a nonchalant shrug. "Hey, if you like this guy, and he makes you happy, I wouldn't want us to, like, fuck it up."

"He does," Chloe grins for a second, but then repeats, "He does," a bit more quietly, as if she's trying to reassure herself, and Beca can't tell which reaction cleaves a deeper crack in her heart. She's not going to press for details, but Chloe does that thing where she glances down and chews on her lower lip for a second and taps the top of her right foot against the floor. Usually, she'll reset to her bubbly exterior after a second, but Beca tries to catch her gaze and, at the same time, wills her breath not to catch as she looks Chloe over because, dammit, _no one_ should be this stunning while wearing a black Atlanta Falcons shirsey and bright pink athletic shorts with next to no makeup on and her hair pulled up in a messy bun.

Beca's about to let it go, maybe crack a joke about how at least none of the current Bellas will grill Jake the way Aubrey would—she might be even more protective of Chloe than Beca is, and that's saying a lot—when Chloe gives a small sigh. "It's just...I mean, I _know_ we're not all that serious," she confides to Beca, "but every once in a while, it'd be nice if sex wasn't an expected part of all our hangouts. Like, what's that line in 'Fuck and Run?' In the chorus…" it suddenly hits Chloe and she murmurs, "Sometimes, I'd rather just have all the stupid old shit. Like letters and sodas."

"Like letters and sodas," Beca echoes quietly. "I think we all deserve someone to give us those experiences, Chlo."

She knows she's hardly one to talk. After all, part of the reason her relationship with Jesse ended was because he felt like she'd stopped putting in much effort on the romantic end of things. Which, yeah, Beca hadn't even bothered trying to deny that, because it was true.

But she'd like to think she could do that for Chloe. Or at least make more of an earnest attempt at it.

She wants to tell Chloe more, but that's where she always ends: wanting to, wanting to, wanting to.

Instead, Beca hams up her voice, going for a 1950s "girl around town" aura, and informs Chloe with a wink, "I know it's not the done thing for two gals like us to go share an egg cream and watch the moving pictures, but it'd be mighty swell to spend an evening like that with you, Miz Beale."

" _Fuckin coward,"_ Beca whispers to herself. She'll flirt with Chloe here and there, certainly. But she always hides her true feelings behind a veneer of playfulness, sometimes even play-acting. Because it's easier, safer, to do that than to step all the way out on to the shaky tree limb that is her affection for Chloe and risk having it snap under her weight.

She can't help almost melting, though, when Chloe's mouth forms a wide "O" of surprise and she gives Beca a grin that's all teeth before answering saucily, "Miz Mitchell! Such behavior would be _scandalous_ for two women of our station," she goes on as Stacie arrives home from one of her study sessions. "At this rate, we may as well strip off our dresses and underthings and swim nude in the fountain at Public Square!"

Stacie asks, "Ok, two things: one, what's this about stripping and public nudity? And two, where's my invitation?"

They all crack up at her perfectly on-brand interruption, and Beca's thankful for the laughter because it's nice cover for why her cheeks are so flushed.

**

Between Beca, Chloe, Stacie, and Flo's collective efforts, they get the Bella Brothel (Amy's nickname for the house had stuck, much to everyone else's chagrin) in order by five or so, and Cynthia Rose, Jessica, and Ashley also play the role of heroes by going on a Target run for snacks, Tylenol, Gatorades, and garbage bags. They're not planning to get too crazy, but preparation is key to a good party, they've all found. That includes having Lily oversee Fat Amy while she mixes a yumbo-sized pitcher of Jungle Juice.

"I can't believe you cold-hearted bitches don't trust me to make a less alcoholic drink," Amy grumbles as she expertly flips the tops of the Tito's and Bacardi away from the punch bowl, finishing her pours. "A master artist ain't gonna do her best work with an auditor watching over her shoulder."

"I can live with the berries and orange slices not being perfectly arranged if it means you aren't adding triple the recommended amount of booze like you did with your margarita bombs at Cinco de Mayo," Beca shoots back, and Amy mutters, "Y'all Americans are no fun," but she seems to be following the recipe this time, based on Lily's murmurings.

By about 9:50, Beca's approaching that spot of intoxication where no one has sharp edges, her brain's only producing one sarcastic thought every five minutes instead of four, and while her face isn't numb, it's got that warm feeling like melted hot fudge that's about fourteen degrees below scalding. She's even managed to be cordial toward Jake, and he actually chats with most of the Bellas (Beca can't blame him too much for staying away from drunk Amy, as she's a trainwreck even on good nights) and expresses some genuine interest in her DJing.

" _So, maybe Chloe found a half-decent boyfriend, or friend with benefits, or whatever, for once,"_ Beca reflects. _"Good for her."_

She wants to be happy for her best friend, and she tries to keep that sentiment fixed in place. Really, she does.

But then Stacie taps out as her beer pong partner after they beat Flo and Cynthia Rose. She makes a show of considering other options. But then she turns toward Chloe, her co-captain, her partner in crime, decked out in her classic sea-green top with polka dots and black jeans, a changeup from her usual blue, and Beca Mitchell will choose her over, and over, and over.

Out of respect for Jake, she frames it as a question, rather than a demand. "Chloe? Can I steal you for a game?"

"Yeah!" she trills before murmuring to Jake with a smile, "Be right back."

Except she's not, because they beat Ashley and Jessica, and Benji and Jesse, and then they're going up against the unlikely tandem of Lily and Fat Amy, and they're each down to their final cup.

Beca's tipping a tiny bit closer to drunk than she is to tipsy, but she's not _that_ far gone, and she can tell Jake's getting annoyed that Chloe's been pulled away from him for longer than expected.

After Lily and Fat Amy each fired blanks, Chloe sinks her shot and gives a whoop of excitement, followed by a hip bump against Beca.

" _If you were nicer, you'd 'accidentally' knock over your cup to end the game,"_ Beca reflects. _"Or at least purposely miss so Lily and Fat Amy have a chance at rebuttal."_

But she's not, and she's always greedy about her time with Chloe, so she hits her shot to secure the victory. It's totally worth it when Chloe wraps her in a semi-drunken bear hug and shouts, "Let's go! That's my girl!"

" _God, that soundbite would be perfect in another context,"_ Beca thinks. Joint thrills of possibility and despair jolt her bones as she and Chloe decide to relinquish the table for other uses.

Beca lets Chloe retreat to Jake, and they dance and chat for a while while Beca focuses on not being a third wheel. She loses herself in the music, too—obviously, she's got the party playlist from her iPod bumping on shuffle, and if there's one thing Beca Mitchell possesses in spades, it's fabulous music taste. She throws back a tequila shot with Stacie that she should know better than to take, but, fuck it, summer break is still a thing, and she actually kinda, sorta actively cares about the Bellas and schoolwork now, so she's going to curtail her partying in a couple weeks.

The tequila surges through her system in perfect time with the first guitar lick to Lissie's "Pursuit of Happiness" cover and she hears Chloe _flip_ because it's one of her favorite party songs. Well, one of _their_ favorite party songs, truly, and as Beca's walking toward the living room, she hears a bemused comment from Jake. "I guess I didn't remember you showing me this song the other day, babe."

Despite her pettiness and slight jealousy, Beca winces on the guy's behalf, because she knows Chloe considers music-sharing a near-sacred activity, and Chloe's slight huff and eye roll speak for themselves as she passes by Beca to get another drink from the kitchen.

Trying to work on the whole "being a good person thing," she sidles up next to Jake. "Pro-tip: if Chloe recommends a song to you, try to listen to it within, like, a day or two," she tells him.

" _Am I being condescending? Maaaybe a teensy bit,"_ she thinks. _"But also, it's genuinely good advice."_

"Thanks, Beca," he nods. "It's a little weird to get used to. I mean, I'd say I like music, of course, I'd think anyone who says they don't might be a psychopath or just deep in an Adderall binge where nothing sounds good," he remarks. "But I'm realizing for you all it's like...way, way beyond that."

"We're a little crazy that way," Beca agrees. "And in other ways, too, as you can see," she adds, gesturing to...well, everything; Lily's extracting Internet revenge on a frat bro from her perch on on a sofa's arm and Jessica just won $20 for having the closest estimate for when Stacie would remove her top (she'd guessed 10:52 and Stacie had stripped it off at 10:47).

"Seems to be a pretty common part of the Barden experience," he comments, sipping on his Sierra Nevada IPA.

Beca guesses she should try to keep the conversation going somehow, but she's made enough awkward, icebreaker-induced small-talk for a lifetime, so she just says, "Yeah," and bobs to the music, awkwardly dancing her way toward her favorite people-watching arm-chair to be a passive observer as some of the night's chaos unfolds.

Or, rather, she's in the process of doing that when a couple of fortuitous events collide. Namely, Jake goes to get another beer, and doesn't notice Chloe returning from the kitchen amidst the wave of other partygoers as the second chorus to Pursuit of Happiness starts.

Just as Beca's about to settle in on the chair, Chloe locks eyes with her and sings, _"I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know, everything that shines ain't always gonna be gold, hey."_

Beca's helped put on shows in packed venues with hundreds of audience members, and yet, these are always her favorite performances. The ones where she and Chloe are singing to each other and the rest of the world melts away.

So what choice does she have but to reply in kind, _"I'll be fine, once I get it. I'll be good."_

She doesn't remember standing up, but suddenly she and Chloe are striding toward each other and in another timeline, in another life, if her life was a movie, this would be _their moment,_ like Beca and Jesse's sappy first kiss.

It's not a perfect parallel, but Beca's content to have something they can call their own, this musical connection, as Chloe takes the low register on the next line. Her voice comes out raspy and rough, adding a hint of a warning to the line, _"Hands on the wheel…"_ before she and Beca half-sing, half-shout, _"Uh-uh, fuck that!"_ in each other's faces, playfully flipping each other the bird and dissolving into giggles like they always do. They swap spaces on the next two lines before belting out the final _"Hands on the wheel!"_ loud, proud, and definitely a little off key (Aubrey would kill them for it, but whatever; sometimes cacophony sounds better than perfection).

Beca tries not to watch too closely as Chloe thrashes along to the guitar solo, but her lithe body's blend of beauty and violence—the wild bounce of her red curls, the snap of her long, swan-like neck as she headbangs, the exposed ridges of skin along her back and stomach as her shirt rides up—scarfs up all her attention, and she only just notices Jake returning from the kitchen in time to stop gazing at (AKA admiring) Chloe so intensely.

His arrival is like unplugging an amp, and the rest of the world lurches back into view for Beca and Chloe, as if it was never out of place to begin with.

Lissie's voice tapers off a bit on the final rendition of the chorus, and Beca feels her own energy dissipate as she murmurs, "I'll go get us some waters, I could use one."

"Ok," Chloe answers back.

Beca swears she can feel Chloe's eyes on her as the song fades out, but she doesn't look back.

She's played this song and dance before. It'll hurt either way.

**

Beca Mitchell's spent a good chunk of her formative years cultivating her badass persona, but there's one way in which she's distinctly not a legitimate ass kicker or taker of names (ok, two if you count the whole "having a massive unrequited crush on your best friend and being physically unable to tell her about it" thing).

That is, she's more than happy to bail on parties well before midnight. Although she's always up for a good time, the sheer novelty of booze consumption wore off halfway through freshman year, and, honestly, she'd rather work on her music or just get to sleep than stay up for the sake of staying up, most nights. Beca's made enough party memories with her girls to fill at least a couple of DVDs and will undoubtedly make more over the next two years.

As usual, Beca had attempted to Irish goodbye her way upstairs and failed miserably, but it's only 11:38 and she's not quite ready to sleep yet. Beca opens her laptop, contemplates the project she'd half-started, or, really, quarter-started a couple of weekends ago, plugs in her headphones, and takes a listen.

She grimaces and closes her tabs, then surfs around YouTube for a few minutes, trying to trip and fall into a killer music wormhole, but it's not working. After a few more ineffective searches, she shuts her laptop with a frustrated huff.

She puts it back at its home on her desk and, on a lark, retrieves her songwriting notebook and a pen out of the bottom drawer on the left-hand side of the desk.

She hears someone, or maybe two someones, coming up the stairs.

Her heart catches in her chest when she recognizes Chloe's slightly drunk giggle, the breathy one she's most likely to let out when she's on the comedown from a party.

She's debating putting her headphones back on in case she and Jake are at the beginning of a little after party when the other person speaks.

"Wha happened to your boy-toy, Chloy? Shit, I mean, Chloe?" Stacie giggles.

Beca catches snatches of Chloe's answer, hears the words "weird" and "jealous" and "hot" and doesn't know exactly what to make of all of them.

Part of her wants to investigate but, oh, hey, she's suddenly writing words to a song and has a hint of a structure in place and she doesn't want to interrupt her flow.

_Bad lie…b-b-b-bad lie…_

"Ok, you wrote two words. Really got something there, Becs," she snorts to herself.

She can almost hear the beat, though—something brash, loud, maybe a little juvenile, like Sleigh Bells' early shit off Treats or Reign of Terror. Something simple that lets the words punch through for themselves.

And just like that, she has the rest of her chorus figured out.

_Said it was cool you fucked him, that was a bad lie_

_You want the truth? Swear I could kiss you like a bad guy._

Is it lame? Yes.

Does it sound like a kitschy bubblegum pop line? Definitely.

Is it true? Abso-fucking-lutely.

After that, the first verse pours out of Beca's pen.

_You're a dangerous high, like sippin vodka and red bull_

_Make me puke up regret, make me go fuckin mental_

_I can't be your home, just an apartment you rent_

_But I want the faceless dudes who date you to get bent_

_Take it from me, jealousy is a bitch_

_I'll try not to be one the day you get hitched_

_Fake it all, be the perfect maid of honor_

_Shoot Jaeger afterwards to forget you married Connor,_

_Or Jake, or Max, the name doesn't fuckin matter_

_Of course I'll be thrilled you got your happily ever after_

_You know I tell the truth every time I get plastered._

_You already know that's just another…_

_Bad lie…b-b-b-bad lie…_

_Said it was cool you fucked him, that was a bad lie_

_You want the truth? Swear I could kiss you like a bad guy._

Beca's normally "meh" handwriting is fast turning into an untidy scrawl. She pauses for a second, writes "Uh" on the page as a placeholder while she thinks, and, ok, maybe she should use Chloe as a frame of reference for her songwriting more often, because the next line, and the rest of the verse, hit her like a lightning bolt.

_Uh, while we're on this topic of honesty_

_I'm scared your boyfriend might be catching on to me_

_Cause I might be suggesting subconsciously_

_That he's not the one you should be ogling_

_Please tell me, what would get you to notice?_

_Would a rad tat, a new dress, catch your focus?_

_I want your attention, on me, squarely_

_Still clinging to hope? Yes, I am, barely_

_I'd bare my heart and my soul and my skin for you_

_Your voice resonates with me on an endless loop_

_If I say it's not, shit, I'm just pretendin, dude_

_You cover all my tracks, even all the interludes._

_I promise that's not a…_

_Bad lie…b-b-b-bad lie…_

_Said it was cool you fucked him, that was a bad lie_

_You want the truth? Swear I could kiss you like a bad guy._

For the bridge and the outro, Beca's feeling a little bit of an old-school, bluesy rock, Lana Del Rey, drunken slow-dance in a dive bar vibe and scribbles,

_Don't wanna smoke no marijuana with you, babe_

_Prescription pads just make me sad, I need your face_

_Feelin faded, dumb, elated like we're on stage_

_Kissin you would be my best-tasting mistake_

_I'd love to kiss you like a bad guy (oh yes, I would)_

_That's not a bad lie_

_No it's not, no, no,_

_That's not a bad...lie._

Beca's penmanship is average at best and generally mediocre, but it's gone on an extreme slant now, with the letters n, m, and e looking like jagged spikes. Her l's and I's are nearly indistinguishable, they're so rushed.

She's heard more than a few emo songs about how "my hand is cramping up because I can write all these words you'll never see," but fuck, she never thought she'd actually _experience_ that particular sad phenomenon.

Beca should deal with the fact that Chloe's inspiring some of her best original work in at least a couple months. Beca should probably tell Chloe that she's sort of unofficially becoming her muse as of tonight. More than anything, at the moment, she should probably get to sleep. She can process this revelation in the morning after she's eaten a stack of chocolate chip pancakes with a side of bacon.

She fires off a quick text to Jesse. _"Yo, my dude. Wanna hit Joe Mama's around 10:30 or 11 tomorrow for brunch? I'll pay if you drive."_

A few seconds later, her phone buzzes: _"Absolutely, gurl. Btw, solid party, as always. Preciate the invite."_

" _You're welcome, and thx. I'll spam call you if you're not here by 11:15, so be sure to set an alarm. Drink some water and take an Advil before you go to bed, too. Catch you tomorrow."_ With that, she makes sure her alarm is set for 9:45, mutes her phone (she loves her Bellas, but at least a handful of them will go full dumbass mode and inevitably send drunken group text messages in the wee hours of the morning), chugs a glass of water and pops an Advil herself, and drifts off to sleep.


	3. A Little Young, A Little Dumb

"I think I've found a new mashup we could try," Chloe announces one Tuesday night in early September in lieu of a greeting as she enters Beca's bedroom.

"You realize that knocking is a thing normal people do, right?" Beca asks without looking away from her computer screen or getting up from laying on her stomach; she's taking a break from homework and making music, which feels a bit too much like work at the moment, to watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. While CharDee MacDennis is one of her all-time favorite episodes, it pales in comparison to her favorite distraction: one Chloe Beale.

"I'm not a normal person," Chloe answers proudly.

"Of that, I'm well aware. When you burst into my shower three years ago, my first thought was, wow, this girl _must_ be mentally stable!" Beca jokes.

"Well, where would little miss ear monstrosities be today if I hadn't popped in to instigate that duet with her freshman year?" Chloe asks with a laugh.

"I wouldn't have been subjected to Aubrey's tyranny, and that would've been dope, probably," Beca guesses. "But I wouldn't have met you nerds either, so I guess it evens out."

"What a charmer you are," Chloe answers with an eye roll to rival Beca's. "Hard to believe you haven't wrangled a man in here recently with compliments like that."

"At least a tiny bit of your sunshine-y demeanor has rubbed off on me, Beale. I think I traded you some sarcasm for it," Beca deadpans.

"I'll take that deal," Chloe replies coolly. "Anyway, to get to the reason I came to see you in the first place…" she plops down next to Beca on her bed. "Mind pausing this?"

Beca shakes her head. "Nah, it's fine."

"Thanks, Becs," Chloe smiles as she pulls up YouTube. "And here are your headphones," she adds, retrieving them from Beca's desk and passing them to her; they've got this routine down pat, and Beca says, in perfect time with Chloe, "Now close your eyes." They'd instituted the "blind listen" rule to try and avoid having their own preferences bleed into sets too much.

"You mocking me, Mitchell?" Chloe pouts, but it's totally playful.

"Nah, not at all," Beca laughs with her eyes shut. "I just know what to expect from you, Beale."

"Well, hopefully you aren't expecting this combo," Chloe responds. Beca hears the slightly muted clack of her keyboard and the click of her mouse, followed by Chloe murmuring, "Happy listening. As always, I'm eager to hear your thoughts."

The chugging guitars and insistent drum beats of "Brick by Boring Brick" roar in her ears and Beca nods appreciatively; she's always had a soft spot for Paramore. Something about the instrumentals are a tiny bit off, though.

" _It's not bad and it's definitely not a remake...maybe it's just pitched down a tiny bit?"_ she guesses. She can feel Chloe bobbing beside her as the lead guitar comes in and then ripples out with distortion, followed by…

_Once upon a time_

_A few mistakes ago_

_I was in your sights_

_You got me alone_

_You found me, you found me,_

_You found me-e-e-e-e_

"Chloe. _Dude,_ " Beca breathes. "This mashup is a fucking gem of a find. Like, T. Swift definitely isn't a rock singer, but her voice totally meshes with this backing," she analyzes. "And the Paramore instrumental is a hell of a lot better than the whole 'it's 2012, I'm gonna use dubstep' deal that the production team ended up doing with I Knew You Were Trouble."

"So, you think this is something we could try to incorporate into one of our sets?" Chloe asks optimistically, trying and struggling to hide the massive grin threatening to overtake her face.

"Yeah, definitely," Beca answers, not bothering to hide the pride in her voice, and Chloe coos excitedly and claps her hands together. "Got any ideas for choreography?"

"As a matter of fact, I do," Chloe answers. "Lemme get my mini whiteboard and I can sketch out a little of the routine."

As she scampers off to her room, Beca closes the song she's currently working on and pulls up her pet project of "Bad Lie."

" _You wrote this over two weeks ago, in yet another sad moment of pathetically pining for Chloe,"_ she tells herself. _"You're probably not going to release it at all, so just let it go. It doesn't have to be perfect."_

Except Beca's kind of a perfectionist when it comes to any song that's worth a damn, and she knows, in her bones, that this one has potential. If not as her own tune, then maybe as someone else's-shit, she'll happily take a songwriting credit if she can somehow get it, even though she doesn't know how exactly to even start that process.

Chloe walks Beca through the basics of the choreography routine with her standard blend of colorful diagrams (she always includes four different colors of markers to delineate different parts of the stage), hand gestures, and actual dancing.

The latter is always Beca's favorite method of seeing the choreography, even if it doesn't stick with her too much because she spends too long admiring Chloe's lithe body, the easy grace that's imbued in seemingly all her movements, from the more traditional steps that Aubrey so stubbornly championed to the free-flowing dance that complements the modern Bella sound.

"I just haven't quite figured out the ending," Chloe mentions. "I don't like how the instrumental fades out."

Beca frowns. "What do you mean?" She'd been pausing the mashup at certain spots for Chloe to highlight the choreo and hadn't actually listened to it all the way through.

Chloe, as she's wont to do, invades Beca's personal space and scrolls the video toward the end of the song, to Taylor Swift's last repetition of, " _I knew you were trouble when you walked in (trouble, trouble, trouble)."_

As her vocals fade out, Beca hears-or, rather doesn't hear-what Chloe's referencing. "They cut out the ending chants from Brick by Boring Brick," she notes. "So it sounds incomplete."

"Yes, that's exactly it, Becs!" Chloe beams. "I wanna hear what it would be like with the chant in."

"Here, Chlo, I can fix that in about a minute," she replies confidently, converting the YouTube video to an MP3 (for what's probably the thousandth-something time in her life) before doing the same for Brick by Boring Brick.

"Gimme a second, just gotta find the right spot to sync these so there's no awkward pause," Beca breathes as she arranges the tracks in BandLab; she's hardly in full-on DJ mode, but she's always more than happy to explain her work with Chloe. Mostly because they both love music-how it speaks to and moves both of them-and their tastes are pretty similar without fully overlapping. There's a nice degree of comfort with a certain, exciting spice of spontaneity.

(And Beca's other warm feelings about the triangular connection between herself, Chloe, and the music they like definitely have nothing to do with how Chloe gazes at her like she's arranging the stars in the night sky when she's mixing. Nope. Not at all.)

"Ok, and here we go." Beca unplugs her headphones from her laptop and jabs the increase volume button a few times, then presses play.

This time, as Taylor's vocals fade out and the final guitar riff starts, it's accompanied by a group chant of

_Ba-da-ba, ba-da ba-ba-da_

_Ba-da ba-ba, ba-da-ba ba_

Chloe loses herself in it, closing her eyes, tapping her foot on the ground in time with the beat, and stretching her arms above her hands to clap along with the rhythm. Beca thinks, not for the first time, that these moments are when Chloe's at her most beautiful, when she's almost totally unguarded, when she gives herself over to whatever music she's listening to and lets it carry her away.

Beca gets off her bed, mirroring Chloe's pose, singing along with her so fiercely that the chant's almost been transformed into a snarl, and Chloe stares her down through a halo of messy red hair like she's a wolf on the hunt, and by the final line and the abrupt cut-off of the last guitar riff, they're standing close enough together, at such a perfect height difference, that Beca could press a kiss to Chloe's throat if she wants to.

"That's a way stronger finish. It's so much more intense, don't you think?" Chloe's grin is all teeth and Beca's never sure if these semi-flirty moments with her are more terrifying or thrilling.

"Yeah," Beca croaks out as Chloe gives a satisfied smile and steps back, saying, "I'm gonna go try and work on the choreo for the ending."

"Sounds good," Beca murmurs as Chloe gathers up her dry-erase board.

She's just about to the door when she stops, glances at Beca's laptop, and asks, "Two things. First, could you send me the MP3 you made? And second," she gestures at the other tab, "are you working on something else?"

Beca wills herself to not blush beet red, but feels a tinge of pink in her cheeks, nonetheless; she can easily blame that on about twenty seconds of head-banging, right?

" _Tell her it's nothing,"_ she urges herself. _"Tell her you're deleting it, or that it's not even really a work in progress, just something you were messing around with."_

Beca's subconscious overrides her self-preservation instincts. "Yeah, it's...um, something I actually wrote. Like, it has lyrics and it's not really electronic."

" _So you both tell her about the song and manage to make it sound ridiculously lame. Great job, Becs,"_ she snorts at herself.

Chloe perks up. "Mind if I take a listen?"

"I'm currently rewriting a lot of it," Beca invents wildly, "but the bridge and the outro are, um, safe. From revision," she adds hastily. Also, safe from clumsily spilling her guts to Chloe.

She plugs her headphones back in. "I'm gonna just scroll to that part and isolate it…" she mutters, cutting and pasting it down into a separate line and muting the other section with the first two verses and chorus; she does _not_ need Chloe hearing those sections and putting two and two together. "And here you go, Chloe," she declares nervously, passing her headphones over before clicking play.

(She's definitely not studying Chloe's gorgeous face for any reactions.)

But if she was, she'd be enjoying the following: Chloe softly nodding along, the slight gasp of surprise she gives when she hears Beca's voice come in, and the way her lips quirk up in a half-knowing smile near what Beca assumes is the end of the song.

She also loves that she doesn't have to even think to ask Chloe for feedback, because she happily offers it after she takes the headphones off.

"I liked this snippet a lot, Becs! It's a change from your usual electronic style, but I dug it. It has this Elise Davis, Lana Del Rey type of doomed romanticism to it, like the girl in the song is at the last bar for miles in a small town outside a desert," Chloe comments. "And that 'kissing you would be my best-tasting mistake' line is fucking gold."

Beca's about to say thanks for the compliment, but Chloe goes on, her enthusiasm growing, "And your voice has just the right amount of roughness to it without turning into an unattractive growl. It's a little country, almost? But in an authentic way, not like, Florida Georgia Line or some shit like that." She wrinkles her nose in disgust and the sight makes Beca giggle; she really appreciates that Chloe also can't abide by most country artists and grins before telling her, "I was going for that sort of Lana energy. But I've never heard anything by Elise Davis before."

"Am I good or what?" Chloe responds proudly before insisting, "Ok, we're listening to her right now."

"Weren't you going to go finish up the choreography?" Beca asks.

Chloe gives a dismissive wave. "I can picture the basic concept in my head. Continuing your music education is way more important."

Beca swaps out her headphones for earbuds. Listening to new music together this way, when they can manage it (like a couple from every mid-to-late 2000s romcom ever) has become a pretty standard Beca-and-Chloe thing.

Beca feels a smile curl up the corners of her mouth at the twangy guitar-picking on "When You Want Me," but her stomach churns and drops like an anvil as the lyrics near the end of the first verse and come in:

_Living with a lovesick heart can drive you mad_

_Wishing for somebody you'd give all you have_

_Loving the idea of being in love_

Except Beca's never wished for somebody. She's never wished for anyone but Chloe, and, God, can she really be blamed for lovi-liking a person who's the human embodiment of sunshine more often than not?

She turns down the volume on Spotify a bit so she can hear Chloe's soft rendition of the chorus more clearly:

_But you don't know_

_How good it feels, when…_

_You don't know_

_How good it feels, when…_

_You don't know_

_How good it feels_

_When I know you want me_

And Beca wants Chloe desperately, possibly even more than usual, in a revolting turn of events, given that she's at least content with her boyfriend or fuck buddy or whatever Jake is. Beca may not be the best person in the world, but she's not going to purposely break them up or make a move on Chloe while she's kind of spoken for; she's nowhere near that skeezy.

As if on cue, Chloe shifts on the bed to retrieve her phone from her back pocket, but then grimaces and tucks it back before slowly leaning in, closer to Beca as they half-sing, half-whisper the final turn of the chorus together.

Beca's ready to reluctantly get back to her homework, but Chloe wheedles, "Lemme show you one more song," turns her gemstone-blue puppy eyes on her co-captain and Beca's utterly powerless to do anything but cave.

**

She doesn't feel so guilty about putting homework on the back-burner when Chloe's by her side, though, and they get lost together in a few too many "Artist You Might Like" rabbit-hole searches on Spotify before Chloe's phone interrupts them again, this time with a call.

She rolls her eyes and mutters, "Boys," to Beca, but her face lights up when she sees who's on the other end.

"Bree!" she trills happily as she answers her FaceTime call. "What's up?"

"Hi Chloe," she waves back. "And hi to you, too, Mitchell."

"Posen," Beca answers back; they're much better friends now than they ever were when Aubrey was running the Bellas' ship, but they still enjoy their frenemy banter.

"So, my boss here at the lodge has been pressing me to take time off because I've accrued a lot of vacation hours," Aubrey tells them after they spend a few minutes catching up.

Beca scoffs. "You? Not taking enough vacations? I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked _,_ Bree."

"Just because some of us have strong work ethics…" Aubrey starts, half-joking, half-indignant, and Chloe interrupts, "Play nice, you two." Beca sticks her tongue out at Chloe, who playfully swats at her arm before saying, "Go on, Aubrey."

"I was curious-Barden still has that random four day Friday to Monday break in mid-October, right?" she asks.

"Yeah, I think so," Chloe answers while Beca pulls up the school calendar on her laptop. "Yep, we do," she confirms.

Aubrey nods. "Ok, then, I was thinking...is it cool if I come into town on that Thursday or Friday to visit for the weekend?"

Chloe squeals and Beca rolls away from her on the bed.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," she answers, grinning.

Beca rolls her eyes and deadpans, "I suppose it wouldn't be too bad to have you around for a few days," but really, she'll be happy to see their former fearless leader, too.

" _At least she won't make us do cardio on a weekend, right?"_ Beca asks herself.

"We're going to have such a great time!" Chloe squeals again. "Ooh, we could go to a pumpkin patch or maybe see if there are any haunted houses up or…"

"You've put her in golden retriever mode, Posen," Beca laughs.

"I maaay have also had a second coffee this afternoon," Chloe confesses.

Beca cocks her head and regards her with a hint of suspicion. "Thought you were trying to cut down, Beale?"

"It's not my fault my one lit professor wants us to have The Sound and the Fury read by the end of next week," Chloe complains.

"Didn't you already read that one in high school?" Beca asks. "No, wait, that was As I Lay Dying."

Aubrey suddenly chuckles at the pair of them.

"What?" they chorus.

"It's just, you two are kinda disgustingly domestic," she laughs. "Who remembers the books their friend has read in high school?"

"Who else is a big enough nerd to _tell_ you about the books they read in high school?" Beca grins as she shoots a little sass at Chloe in her answer, and the redhead responds with a scandalized gasp. "Who are _you_ to call me a nerd, Mitchell?" she asks. "Do you want me to pull up some of those Facebook photos of you decked out in all black MCR gear from when you were in high school? I'd be happy to repost them for the girls to see now."

"You wouldn't dare," Beca breathes.

Chloe quirks her eyebrow up, opens her Facebook app, and murmurs, "Try me...oh!"

Beca's not risking it, so she swipes Chloe's phone away in a quick, easy motion and Chloe instantly goes on the attack, squeezing Beca's sides and tickling her to try to get her to yield.

Aubrey's sigh can be heard over their commotion, as can her disappointed mom tone: "You two are children, sometimes. Don't you have homework or something you should be doing?"

Beca and Chloe freeze for a second and crack up.

"We do," Beca admits. "And we meant to do that much, much earlier."

"We got distracted with Bella stuff," Chloe adds. "I found a song to add to our playlist and we mapped out the dancing for it. Or, most of it. And then we sort of fell into a music wormhole. Oh, Bree, you _have_ to listen to Elise Davis-"

"That's how this whole mess got started," Beca interrupts, and Chloe giggles, "I didn't hear you complaining about the disruption to homework before."

Aubrey heaves another sigh out, but this time, her voice is less quietly exasperated and more bemused. "You two sure are something."

"Yeah," Chloe replies with a bright smile, and Beca adds fondly, in perfect time, without missing a beat, "We are."

Their dual answer, and the warmth of it, is enough to get Beca through the unexpectedly late night of studying she had to put in following their nighttime shenanigans.


End file.
